Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Trump suggests ‘tapes’ a ploy to sway Comey
Interview links tweet, how ex-FBI chief would testify
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump suggested Friday in an interview that the tweet he sent saying that James Comey had better hope he didn’t have tapes of their conversations was intended to influence the fired FBI director’s testimony before Congress. The president emphasized that he committed “no obstruction” of the inquiries into whether his campaign colluded with Russia.
The interview with Fox & Friends was shown a day after the president tweeted what most people in Washington had already come to believe: that he had not made recordings of his conversations with Comey.
Instead, the president explained in the television interview, his tweets were referring to the possibility that anyone could have taped those discussions.
“I’ve been reading about it for the last couple of months about the seriousness of the horribleness of the situation with surveillance all over the place,” the president said in the interview. “So you never know what’s out there, but I didn’t tape, and I don’t have any tape and I didn’t tape.”
When the Fox News interviewer suggested that the possible existence of recordings might make sure Comey “stayed honest in those hearings,” Trump paused before responding, “It wasn’t very stupid, I can tell you that. He was — he did admit that what I said was right.”
Referring to Comey, the president said that “when he found out that I, you know, that there may be tapes out there whether it’s governmental tapes or anything else and who knows, I think his
story may have changed.”
Trump did not say exactly what he thought had changed about Comey’s story. The former FBI director has only offered his story publicly once, in testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, although his associates provided some details to the news media before that.
Comey testified that he had told the president in multiple conversations he was not personally under federal investigation and said the president implored him to make that public. Trump has seized on that statement as vindication, though the investigation continues, as do congressional inquiries.
Trump, according to his advisers, had become enormously frustrated that Comey would not earlier say publicly that Trump was not under investigation.
Comey also testified that Trump asked him for “loyalty” — which Trump emphatically denies.
Questions about tapes started in May, just days after Trump fired Comey, who then was leading an investigation into Trump associates’ ties to Russian officials. Trump has disputed Comey’s version of a January dinner during which, according to Comey, the president asked for the loyalty pledge.
Trump responded at that time, via Twitter, that Comey “better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!”
That initial Twitter missive triggered a series of consequences. Comey has suggested that the tweet prompted him to ask an associate to release information to The New York Times. The resulting news reports built pressure on a top Justice Department official to appoint an independent prosecutor to oversee the Russia investigation. That special counsel, former FBI Director Robert Mueller, is now reportedly investigating Trump’s own actions.
Without recordings, Comey’s version of his conversations with Trump — which he documented at the time, shared with close associates and testified about to Congress — will likely play a key role as prosecutors consider whether Trump inappropriately pressured the lawman to drop the investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn. Investigators will also weigh Comey’s credibility against the president’s.
MIXED SIGNALS
The president also raised questions about the impartiality of Mueller. “He’s very, very good friends with Comey, which is very bothersome,” Trump said.
Trump repeatedly refused to say whether he believed Mueller would have to recuse himself from the inquiry. The president is said to have railed in private about Mueller to aides and has said he wants to leave open the option of firing him.
Trump said “there’s been no collusion, no obstruction, and virtually everybody agrees to that,” and he added that some of Mueller’s legal team had supported his Democratic rival in the presidential race, Hillary Clinton.
The president closed on a more positive note, saying, “Robert Mueller’s an honorable man, and hopefully he’ll come up with an honorable solution.”
Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway muddied the waters a little Friday morning when she told CNN that, while Trump “answered definitively” that he has made no tapes, “he left open the possibility that they may exist.”
The episode tired Trump’s defenders and aides, who for weeks have been dodging questions about the recordings. Advisers who speak to Trump regularly have said he had not mentioned the existence of tapes during their conversations. More than a half-dozen aides said they were unaware of any recording devices. All demanded anonymity to speak about private discussions with the president.
White House spokesman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Thursday that she didn’t think Trump regretted the initial tweet. She also could not explain Trump’s new reference to possible surveillance.
Mark Warner of Virginia, top Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee, said the tweeting is an example of Trump’s “willingness to just kind of make things up.”
“It’s remarkable the president was so flippant to make his original tweet and then frankly stonewall the media and the country for weeks,” Warner said. “I don’t know how this serves the country’s interests.”
Trump’s earlier suggestion about tapes evoked the secret White House recordings that led to Richard Nixon’s downfall in the Watergate scandal. Under a post-Watergate law, the Presidential Records Act, recordings made by presidents belong to the people and can eventually be made public. Destroying them would be a crime.